Gulf War Veterans 19 years After Operation Desert Storm

Memories remain from six-week war
Swift Persian Gulf victory in 1990 rehabilitates Army

By: Todd South

Nineteen years ago, bombs started falling on Iraq as the U.S.-led coalition moved to oust Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait.

In 1990, Ken Stephens was a staff sergeant in the Tennessee Army National Guard when President George H.W. Bush sent units to the Middle East. He’d served in the regular Army on active duty for nearly seven years and joined the Guard in 1981.

“Everybody knew we were going,” he said.

Mr. Stephens smiles when talking about his time in the desert. It was hot, sometimes boring, but always busy. His unit built roads in the desert, turning sand into something that heavy trucks and tanks could drive on.

“I was glad we were doing something besides sitting on our cans, waiting to make a move,” he said.

Within a year of returning from the Gulf, Mr. Stephens started feeling pain. He was 37 at the time and just thought it was normal.

Staff photo by Patrick Smith/Chattanooga Times Free Press
Kenneth Stephens talks about his experiences during the Gulf War at his Signal Mountain home on Wednesday. Sunday is the 19th anniversary of Gulf War.

But each year the pain and dizziness got worse, to the point that now he has a hard time standing steadily. In 1997, he received a letter from the government.

That letter told him that he may have been exposed to nerve agents when soldiers blew up a pit of rockets filled with the dangerous toxins near where he was working. The letter and three years of paperwork gained him a disability rating compensation from the Veterans Benefits Administration.

Dr. Paul Shaw went to the Persian Gulf to do his daily job. But the circumstances were a little different.

As a part of the 377th Combat Support Hospital with the U.S. Army Reserve, the doctor knew he’d be moving a lot.

The hospitals were set up to follow the battle as it moved into the Iraq. And with one of the fastest-moving battle fronts in modern warfare, that meant every 24 hours the field hospital would pick up and move with the combat units just ahead.

“I think we got our first bath after six weeks,” he said, laughing.

PERSIAN GULF WAR TIMELINE

* Aug. 2, 1990: Iraqi troops invade Kuwait.

* Aug. 8, 1990: The United States launches Operation Desert Shield.

* Oct. 17, 1990: Western troops in the Persian Gulf number 200,000 U.S., 15,000 United Kingdom and 11,000 French.

* Jan. 15, 1991: Iraq ignores United Nations ultimatum. There are 580,000 allied troops in the gulf.

* Jan. 17, 1991: Operation Desert Storm launches with air attacks on Iraq and Kuwait.

* Feb. 24, 1991: President George H.W. Bush announces the start of the ground operation.

* Feb. 26, 1991: Saddam Hussein confirms a radio report that Iraqi troops have been ordered to retreat from Kuwait.

* Feb. 28, 1991: Iraq accepts all United Nations resolutions.

Source: BBC News
The trip home was memorable for Dr. Shaw and Mr. Stephens. Back in the United States, the men saw people lining the streets for parades.

Those homecomings were a distinct change brought by the Persian Gulf War, said Dr. Kurt Piehler, a University of Tennessee military history professor.

“One of the things that was treated positively was the notion that people should be welcomed home,” Dr. Piehler said.

He said the swift victory in the war was an “incredible rehabilitation” for the Army. The malaise that hung around the military following the Vietnam War and the stagnation of the Cold War made the Persian Gulf War an opportunity to show the world what the U.S. military could do, he said.

Tennessee Army National Guard Master Sgt. Kevin Hudgins was a young specialist in the 196th Field Artillery Brigade when he went to the Gulf War.

“I wasn’t really scared,” he said. “We were there, and I knew what side I was on.”

That was his first combat deployment. When the unit returned, he said, his thoughts were “Oh, back to work.”